We’re looking forward to a year of Science TV and Radio with hopefully no interruptions to the guide this year. Things to look out for in the next few months are a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage and StarGazing Live in March to coincide with the solar eclipse.

However it got me thinking… “What If” is an excellent question for tackling some of the wild ideas we have in education: e.g. What If we used meditation in schools (to pick up on a discussion going on on Twitter right now). It’s important that we think about and debate these ideas. But the answers are useless if simply based on opinion or bias. They have to be researched and ultimately put to the test.

So I’m going to try something – I’m going to propose an (absurd?) hypothetical question. And I want you to give me some proposals as to how we could answer it.

Here’s the question:WHAT IF a school used the money allocated to them for Pupil Premium and used it to (help) fund instrumental provision and music tuition for all students in the school?

This question was prompted by this amazing tweet tonight by @headguruteacher.

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The (loose) rules are:
* make suggestions in comments or on twitter with #EduWhatIf
* contributions should ideally have some credibility – either from direct experience or having read and referenced research.
* constructive criticism of suggestions proposed (remember this is a hypothetical question).
* we are trying to identify a theoretical outcome that may well be able to be implemented so try to be realistic with your suggestions.

What would the effect be? Would it meet the criteria for appropriate spending of PP money? Issues? Benefits? What do you think would happen?